How to get the right advice at the right time? Jim Collins (author of ‘Good to Great’) has a great idea for us: Have a Personal Board of Directors.
What does this mean? A group of 7-8 folks / mentors that you look up to. Your personal council of elders, your brain trust, if I may. The best part is that it can be made up of folks you don’t know personally. You can pick folks based on their biographies, their work, their videos, their companies. It can be anyone who inspires you and sets the benchmark to beat.
Every time you are at crossroads with a tough decision, you can ask yourself, what would the Board want me to do? Use the Board not only for business or strategy decisions, but also ‘moral compass’ decisions. Which makes it imperative that you pick folks who fully align with your value system and set the aspirational bar on ‘doing the right thing’.
Who is on my PBoD, you ask? I am still working on mine. I am taking my time to pick the right folks.
[H/T to Shane Parrish for hosting Jim Collins on his podcast ‘The Knowledge Project’, where I picked this idea from].